SwiftKey X keyboard now available for Android phones, tablets

SwiftKey has launched two new keyboard apps for Android: SwiftKey X for phones and SwiftKey X for tablets. The apps stand out from the crowd thanks to a powerful text prediction engine which doesn’t stop at guessing what word you’re trying to type right now — but also predicts the next word you plan to enter. When it works, this can make text input an awful lot faster on a tablet or smartphone.

The tablet version of SwiftKey is also one of the first keyboards that’s designed so that you can type with just your thumbs while holding a 10 inch tablet in landscape mode. That’s because there’s an optional split-screen view which puts the QWERT on the left and the YUIOP section on the right so that you don’t have to reach your thumbs all the way to the center of the screen –unless you want to use the numeric keypad.

You can also use the tablet app with a more traditional keyboard layout if you want to try your hand(s) at good old-fashioned touch typing.

As part of a launch promotion, both apps are available through Friday at $1.99 each. Starting Satruday the smartphone version of SwiftKey X will cost $3.99 while the tablet app will run $4.99.

Both apps are skinnable, with several color schemes to choose from, including a Honeycomb-themed option that sort of matches the look and feel of the Google Android 3.x user interface, but which looks more attractive than functional.